Student  Mentors  Inspiring  Latino  Excellence /  Somos  Mentores Impulsando  Latinos al Exito (SMILE)
 
Director and Principal Investigator: Jose A. Padin, PhD
(503) 725-8504
padinj@pdx.edu

Program Manager: Lisa Pellegrino for the Children's Investment Fund
Lisa Pellegrino: epellegrino@ci.portland.or.us

Sponsor: SMILE is funded principally through a contract with  the Portland Children's Investment Fund. Additional support comes from the Office of the President, University
Studies, and the Graduate Research Office, and the student organizations Mujeres and
MEChA.

SMILE--Student  Mentors  Inspiring  Latino  Excellence /  Somos Mentores  Impulsando 
Latinos al  Exito-- is a cross-age, after school, community-oriented, youth mentoring program that supports Latino students in 15 schools in the  Portland Public School
district (4 high schools and 11 k-8 and  middle schools).

SMILE works as a multi-tier mentoring program that connects mentors and mentees from 6h grade through college.

  • PSU students are trained to support the mentoring of high school students (through a senior capstone every term)
  • High school students receive mentoring by full- and part-time SMILE mentoring
  • coordinators (assisted by PSU students enrolled in the affiliated capstone course)
  • High school students, in addition, join SMILE in the capacity of mentors for middle school students. High school mentors receive training and support one afternoon a week at their school, and they go out to a middle school to mentor those students on a second afternoon a week.


In addition to after-school mentoring, SMILE brings middle school and high school
students, and their parents, to the PSU campus several times a year to participate in events aimed at connecting them to a future where higher education is a possibility.

Finally, over the course of the year middle school , high school, and college students
in SMILE participate in numerous community service, civil engagement, and public arts projects.

SMILE is located in the Department of Sociology, which, in accordance with the
priorities and  mission of its Center for Health and Social Inequalities Research, and its PhD program in Health and Social Inequality, generously provides faculty time, GRA,
and administrative support.
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